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Tennessee Warbler

Feb 24th, 2012 by Elizabeth

There were a lot of little birds in Costa Rica.  One of the more abundant little birds was the Tennessee Warbler.  Every time I saw him I thought about how funny it was to see a bird with a state’s name in Costa Rica.

“Oh yes, I’m just wintering in Costa Rica.  We return to Tennessee in a few months.”  Apparently they don’t even live in Tennessee but were named that because the birder who named them saw them in Tennessee during migration.

photo by Jon

These are all males.  You can tell by the white eye ring, which is pronounced during breeding season (and not pronounced during non-breeding season).  Females have more yellow around their eyes.  I think the eye ring makes him look extra sweet.

The Tennessee Warbler was everywhere.  I saw him around the lodge, but also deep in the forest.

Here in Utah we still have at least a month until the warblers come back.  Last year the first warbler I saw was the Yellow Warbler.  Come back soon!

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Conner Sings!

Feb 22nd, 2012 by Elizabeth

As I’ve mentioned before, Conner stopped singing and whistling after Audrey died.  In the last month he started recovering and would turn his head to the side while Trevor was whistling and singing.  And last weekend Jon got Conner to start whistling and singing again!

The thing that made him start singing is seeing his reflection in the iPad.  Jon was showing Conner pictures of himself and he started singing and continued singing when the screen went black.  Conner seemed to go through an internal debate because he would sing and then make the noises he makes when he’s incredibly angry and then sing agin.

Both cockatiels have played with the iPad before, although Trevor has played more.  They’ve both played Bejeweled on it enough to leave a pattern of little lick marks.

They don’t play it obsessively, they’ve just tapped the iPad and been surprised when things on the screen changed.  I wouldn’t be mean like this guy making his hungry frog eat bugs off the screen (watch if you want to see the guy get bit in the end).  The cockatiels are interested in whatever has my attention so the iPad and laptop are very exciting.

 

 

Posted in cockatiel | 6 Comments »

Red Crabs in Costa Rica

Feb 18th, 2012 by Elizabeth

Costa Rica has wonderful beaches.  Unlike where we lived near San Francisco the water is warm enough to swim in.

The beaches are covered in holes that are home to crabs.

photo by Jon

The crabs are very shy so if they see you move they’ll go back into the holes.  But I laid on a towel, didn’t move and waited for them to come out.

Next to the crab holes are little round globs of sand.  It looks like the crabs were pushing the sand together with their claws.

There were also hermit crabs on the sand and on land there were crabs that dig holes into the walls of the land to lay eggs.  I really wanted to get a look at the second kind of crab, but they said you have to sit motionless for hours for the crabs to come out.

 

Posted in Costa Rica | 2 Comments »

Chestnut-mandibled Toucan

Feb 17th, 2012 by Elizabeth

My favorite bird of the whole Costa Rica trip was the toucan.

Not only are toucans beautiful, they make slow thoughtful movements and their call is haunting.  You must listen!  The first night that we were in Costa Rica we were walking back to the lodge as it was getting dark and we could hear the calls.  I thought the call was coming from monkeys until I saw the toucans in a tree.

There is a slight gap between the toucan’s feathers and his beak that makes me think his beak is attached the way you would affix a Mr. Potato Head attachment to his head.  You can also see how jagged his beak is in the above picture.  In the below picture you can see how his beak looks detachable.

There were trees filled with berries near the lodge that were a favorite place for the toucans and other birds to eat.  The toucans didn’t mind at all when you got close to them.

The toucan picks a berry off the tree, tosses the berry up in the air and eats it.  Toucans have a really pretty backside too.  The feathers at the base of the tail feathers is white on top and red on the bottom.

photo by Jon

Are you ready to go to Costa Rica yet?

 

Posted in Costa Rica, toucan | 3 Comments »

Trevor

Feb 15th, 2012 by Elizabeth

Trevor is a very alert bird.

somewhere, some crime is afoot

He has a lot of inputs to keep track of because any towel could turn deadly.  Trevor is only calm when Conner is nearby and also calm.

 

with great power comes great responsibility

If Conner is agitated, or especially if he is being taken to another room, Trevor will lose his mind with anxiety.  He’s the keeper of what’s right in the house.

 

Not everyone is meant to make a difference.

But to me, the choice to live an ordinary life is no longer an option.

Posted in cockatiel | 2 Comments »

Neotropical Green Anole

Feb 12th, 2012 by Elizabeth

The Costa Rican jungle is filled with creatures.  The best way to find lizards and frogs is to look where you’re stepping and focus in on any movement.  You can also find them on plants.

photo by Jon

This is a neotropical green anole.  They’re only found in Central America.  Jon took all these photos.  My Sigma takes awful pictures of little things and Jon is incredibly talented when it comes to getting unique pictures of small objects.  Jon also wants you to know that he’s sick right now and he thinks it’s because the lizard bit him.  The anole is really beautiful up close.

photo by Jon

Do you see the blue coloring on his back?  In researching anoles I’ve seen a lot of variation in coloring for the Neotropical Green Anole.  Some are all green, some have more blue.  They’re all between five to eight inches long.

photo by Jon

I really like his eyes.  They’re so clear.

photo by Jon

 

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Steller Jay

Feb 11th, 2012 by Elizabeth

Last week I went to California and I rented the Nikon 500mm f/4 lens through borrowlenses.com.  This lens is amazing!  I rushed to Golden Gate Park to take pictures and within two minutes, I had fantastic shots of a Steller Jay.

Do you see how fine the edges of the feathers are?  You can’t get that level of detail from my Sigma lens.  And I’ve always had trouble getting pictures of the Steller Jay because they live in forests and are therefore always in shadows.  Fortunately, the Nikon lens can pick birds out of shadows.

Because I always compare every jay to the Blue Jay I especially love how the Steller Jay has a crest.

Steller Jays are known for imitating calls, which I’ve seen Blue Jays doing too.  At my mother’s feeder in Georgia the Blue Jays will clear the feeders by imitating the Red-tailed Hawk.  It’s hilarious and the other birds fall for it every time!

Posted in corvid | 2 Comments »

Perches

Feb 8th, 2012 by Elizabeth

Jon and I have been spending more time reading at night, which is a perfect time for the cockatiels to come and sit with us.  Conner prefers my left shoulder but he’ll settle for a knee.

What Conner has started really liking, though, is perching at an angle close to my knee.  It looks like a lot of effort to keep himself balanced.

It’s not because my leg is in the way.  He likes to snuggle up next to my leg.  I suspect he’s taken up this new position because Trevor is always invading his space, trying to get to close to Conner.  So when Conner is on my leg at this angle Trevor can’t bother him.

I took this picture when the light was coming in at a certain angle.  In my focus in taking pictures of wild birds, I sometimes forget that I have beautiful subjects to photograph at home.

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Iguana

Feb 4th, 2012 by Elizabeth

Costa Rica was filled with lizards.  The iguanas were most common but we also saw smaller lizards like anoles.  We heard geckos but never saw them.  At night geckos make kissy noises that were so loud it filled the lodge.  I think the lizard below is called a Green Iguana.

I could recognize this one in particular because he stayed in a specific grassy area around the lodge and was bigger than the other lizards.  He was probably two or three feet long including his tail.  An easy marker was the blue dots on his back.

There was one day where Jon and I were exhausted from hiking, swimming and the incredibly hot climate so we spent the day near the lodge reading and taking pictures.  This iguana climbed up a chair, onto a table and tipped over Jon’s mug so he could drink from it.

He didn’t drink the tea for very long.  I guess iguanas don’t like oolong.

I have no real story for the picture below.  The iguana was less skitish than other lizards so I took many pictures of him and this one  happened to include a moth on the iguana’s head.

Posted in Costa Rica | 4 Comments »

Violet-crowned Woodnymph

Feb 2nd, 2012 by Elizabeth

You’re not tired of hummingbirds are you?  Because I took a lot of pictures of the male Violet Crowned Woodnymph to show off here:

These guys were very common around the lodge because they love these purple flowers that were planted everywhere.

In a certain light, the woodnymph’s throat is bright green.  It’s such a flash of color!

If you have trouble identifying the woodnymph because you can’t see his colors, note that they have forked tails.

As if this winter weren’t awesome enough with the trip to Costa Rica, I get to fly to San Francisco on business next week for a Monday meeting, which means I get to use Sunday to take pictures of birds in Golden Gate Park.  (Don’t worry about the birds, Jon will stay with them and they won’t think they we might leave them for good).  Even better, there’s a place in San Francisco where I can rent a 500mm Nikon lens.  The lens is used to take phenomenal pictures.  The drawback being that the lens is very expensive to buy new and twice as heavy (8.5 lbs) as my already heave 150-500mm Sigma lens (4.2) so I want to test one out before taking the plunge.  Get ready for crystal clear pictures!

 

Posted in Costa Rica, hummingbird | 2 Comments »

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